


The Whip or the Hand That Wields It

by codenamecynic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub, Edgeplay, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Flogging, Gags, Leather Kink, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Pegging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 13:26:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5786779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian yearns to be made to suffer, but sometimes a whip is more than a whip, and friends can become more than friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whip or the Hand That Wields It

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a loose precursor to "The Devil to Pay", but neither is required reading :)

When Sebastian says he wants to be punished, she doesn’t question why or ask what he’d done.  She just tells him when to show up.

Isabela is certain that too much time alone has not been good for Hawke; the estate is far too large for one man and a staff of three, even with the occasional visitor.  There is too much space for things to echo, too many empty rooms in which to hide.

The gold around her neck sits heavy, hot against her skin; she can’t exactly fault him, though, for his indulgences.  It certainly is a _creative_ way to fill the space.

It’s possible that this was once used as the estate’s chapel.  The pews and altar have long since been removed, but the ceiling is high enough to be intimidating, windows generous and meditative.  The wall sconces burn red candles, just like in the Chantry, and there is something so deliciously ironic about the whole thing that she can’t help but laugh a little under her breath as she fixes the leather cuff around Sebastian’s wrist.

Penitence indeed.

She stands back as Sebastian flexes his arms, muscles bunching under unevenly tanned skin.  He has a fine form, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, pert round buttocks and thick thighs, but carries himself so closely it’s easy to forget that he’s naked.  One merely sees the burden, the leash and the hand that holds it.

Hawke would like that hand to be his, this she knows to be true.  She imagines that the desire is mutual, else Sebastian would not consent to be in this room, let alone for Hawke to sit where he is now - sprawled in a chair in the corner, far enough back that they can both forget about him.  For such a large man, he can be eerily quiet, the kind of silence that sends shivers up her spine.

But that is not why they’re here.

Sebastian stands in the middle of the floor, stretched between two sturdy posts that dwarf them both, arms upraised.  She turns a crank and cogs up above spin with a well-oiled clank, drawing him out until his body forms a broad X, almost as taut as one of his bow strings.  It’s a fine line, fragile as fletching, his heels only barely in contact with the floor.  His stance is wide, feet spread more than shoulder’s width apart, held in place by more thick leather cuffs and a bar of solid steel that stretches between them.

It seems like a generous arrangement, but one that she knows from experience will turn strenuous over time, as arms and calves start to ache, position shifting from one to the other to alleviate strain.  As much as one can, anyhow.

He does have a beautiful body, though; the bonds show it off to great effect.  Fully secure, he exhales long and slow, a sound almost like a sigh – not weary, almost of satisfaction, as though he’s drunk deeply to slake a thirst.

And it is a thirst.  She doesn’t deprive herself, doesn’t believe in it.  That kind of sacrifice is pointless, almost wasteful, but she respects the journey, the transformation, the kind of slow metamorphosis that makes two disparate things into something new, neither one nor the other.

After all, she’s a helper.

“Do you want to be gagged?”

“Yes please.”

“Very well.”

“Thank you.”

So polite, and well-mannered too.  He accepts the bit with little fuss, standing with his neck arched back so she can reach to slide the tongue of the leather strap through the frame of the iron buckle.  She makes it tight but not _so_ tight; he inhales deeply through his nose, and she knows his eyes are closed, scenting the rich, heady aroma of the leather-wrapped rod between his teeth.

He likes that. It shows in the line of his spine, in the tilt of his hips, and in the way his cock swells suddenly from half to full mast.  There are things there that she thinks about exploring, wonders what it would be like to truss him from head to toe in leather, rigid and immobile and tight across his skin and leave him to the agonies of constriction, to watch him writhe and beg – for freedom, for touch, for sweet, sweet release.  Sebastian does beg so nicely, but she has only the patience for one, not the other. 

Besides, sometimes talking spoils it.  This is not, in this space, within this frame, real life.  Within these walls they are not who they are outside of them, and when she touches his face Sebastian bends into her hand in a way he never would under the light of the waking world, turning smooth shaven cheek into the knife-roughened calluses on her fingertips.  She presses a strip of red cloth into his grasp, balled up tight to fit inside his palm.

“Drop this and everything stops immediately. Nod twice if you understand me.”

That part is important.  He does and she smiles her approval, though he doesn’t see, blue eyes shuttered behind lowered eyelids.  He has the longest eyelashes, dark against the sun-kissed bronze that highlights the tops of his cheekbones, and they flutter when her hand closes without preamble around his cock.

He knows better than to move; the instant he pushes forward is the minute she pulls back.  It’s all part of the game, the tease.  She hesitates to call it _torture_ , she is here to do a service after all, but the way he hardens in her grip as though to bursting, straining for the touch he craves and yet is so often denied – it’s enough to make her feel sorry for him.

Sometimes, anyway. 

He doesn’t meet her eyes unless she makes him – another one of his unwritten rules. Isabela never minds a bit of deference, she’s the queen of the eastern seas with a hundred men beneath her _(was, once, was once),_ and she watches his face as her hand strokes his cock.  She’s doing no more than to titillate, fingers light and cool against the fever of his flesh, and yet it’s enough to have him swollen and pulsing in her grip, head glistening with a bead of moisture that she swipes her thumb over.  He sees it, watching with lowered eyes the way her dark skin moves over his lighter flesh and he groans behind the gag, a soft sound barely stronger than a sigh. 

She can feel her nipples tighten in response and she grips him more firmly, fingers curling hard around the base of his cock, the tips of thumb and forefinger straining to meet one another around his flesh.  She can't quite manage it, so instead it's rough pumps from base to tip, the hard-but-soft of his skin rasping under the wind-burned, rope-burned, knife-hilt-roughness of her palms.

It doesn't take long; this suffering, he does it to himself, makes himself wait until he can barely contain it.  She can feel the tremor in him, the way his toes curl in to grip at the bare stone floor and straight white teeth close around the gag, jaw clenching, everything as tight as hands fisted.

It's a slow count-down from ten, to see how far she can push him, how long he can hold out before the wall of his composure starts to crumble.

They make it to three before she stops.

**

As soon as her hand withdraws, he wants to scream.

He could, of course, around the gag.  There isn't really anything other than his own gritted teeth keeping him from crying out, but unlike other places he has sought solace in the past, Isabela worries.  He deserved this, he wanted this, he _asked_ for this, and so he keeps quiet, even when his cock throbs so hard the small of his back hurts, even when he finds himself driving forward into the air after her retreating touch with all the strained strength he can muster.

It doesn't do any good.  It never does, and he's left to shiver and shake, thrusting into the air like a humping dog before he remembers to breathe.  Slow and deep and full of the scent of leather.  At his wrists, at his ankles, in his mouth - and draped over one arm, the cool tassels of the heavy flogger he'd picked out sliding over his chest and shoulder as she pulled it down his back like a dozen seeking fingers soft against his skin.

The softness only lasts as long as it takes for her to pull her arm back.  He feels the impact against his side but it doesn't hurt - not immediately. 

She starts slow.  The leather whispers against him, a kiss that bites. The blunt ends of the tassels land with the most force, but Isabela has a fine hand and it is nothing close to bruising, merely raising a blush across his skin.  It makes his cock throb.

He hasn't touched himself in a fortnight.  It wasn't so much a stipulation of their time together, but his own choice, made in privacy.  An accord between himself and his god and his own conscience, which sometimes feels like an entity all its own.  The specter of his recklessness is there as well, hovering like a rogue in the shadows.  It flings poison darts his way, now and again, seeking to place snares beneath his feet and drag him into the past, into old roles and postures and positions.

At least this one, stretched out and bared and at Isabela's mercy, is one he does not have to maintain on his own.  The leather cuffs don't chafe but Hawke's stare does, heavy on his back between his shoulder blades, as present as fingers along his spine.

He _wants_.  He wants _so badly_ , just a little leaf boat tossed in the eddies of fast water in a river, but he wonders if he's come too far, if there has been too much water under the bridge to attempt to sail back.  Hawke being here is not to prevent that, nor to supplement it.  He's merely a witness.  To Sebastian's strength and Sebastian's weakness, and all the subtleties in between.

He's... confessing.  In his own way.

Hawke should see this, Hawke should know.  Not that he really thinks it will make a difference; he isn't likely to shock someone who's chosen to redecorate a space once dedicated to the Chantry with furniture from a torture chamber, but he still cannot shake the way it feels like a lie when he smiles at the man from behind the iron mask of the Chant and his white armor.  Even if he had blessings to give in earnest, Hawke does not want them.  By the end, Hawke may not want _him_ either.

The fall of the flogger is steady and slow, rhythmic like oars pulling against the current.  His skin grows tender, the sting amplifying as Isabela retraces familiar territory.  She works down his back, the strands curving around to nip at his unprotected sides, his bare hips, his ass.  She strays well away from between his legs - that isn't an amusement for her, but then her treatment there is of a much crueler kind.

The impact builds until the flogger meets his flesh with the full weight of her arm, and it hurts - it _hurts_ \- but it feels good too.  His cock is only too ready to acknowledge it, hips bucking forward as the heavy weight of the swinging leather falls across his backside, licking with sharp tongues, thrusting into nothing.

She stops and his breath comes ragged in the silence, hands twisting where restrained to grasp at the supporting chain above them.  All is silent but for him, panting around the bit in his mouth with sweat dripping from his brow.

Her arm loops around him from behind.  The only thing she touches is his cock.

He's so hard the contact is like ice flung into his face.  The noise he makes is something like a sob, the sound of it constricting in his throat as he gasps a desperate breath.  It feels so _good_ , hot and slick and steady again as the beat of a marching drum.  He withstands it as long as he can, imagining his feet growing roots planted deep within the earth, willing himself to stay strong, stay still, stay-

He can't, he _can't_ , and he starts to thrust his hips.

Her hand drawing away is almost too much, but it's exactly what he wants.  Sebastian sags against the restraints, lets the pull of the cuffs and the bar suspended between his ankles support his weight.

He is not in control.  He doesn't have to be in control.

The bit creaks between his teeth as leather tails drag across his skin.

**

She is not to make him come.  Isabela isn't sure which of those is the operative word, _make_ or simply _she_. 

 _Making_ is, after all, a very different fish to catch than _letting_ , and though Hawke has not yet spoken even a word or moved from the relaxed, pensive position he's taken in his chair, they are not alone in the room.  It's possible Sebastian has other plans.

It's even more possible that Sebastian is running a gambit, ever the rogue.  She just isn't sure how the dice will shake out.

It's not her problem, or her business, but she hopes he knows what he's doing.

They go in circles that constrict ever tighter, her hand alternately on the whip and around his cock.  She strokes him until he grunts and thrusts into her palm, lays the flogger across his back until he writhes, skin red and salt-stung with sweat.  The peaks come faster, climb higher until she would wield pleasure and pain like knives, both at the same time but for the limits of her reach.

Instead she stops.

He's wrecked, but not broken.  She's careful about that, as any person who tends to leave lasting scars should be.  That's not what she's here for.

His whole body is taut, muscles tense and straining, standing out against his skin.  His cock bobs angrily against his belly, swollen and leaking.  Every now and again his hips stutter forward, seemingly of their own volition, trying to thrust against an invisible hand.  His hair is damp with sweat and she knows that his cheeks would be wet with tears, if she were to look.  She doesn't, doesn't cross into his line of sight, doesn't dispel whatever imagery he has conjured for himself.

That does not mean she's unaffected.  Her cunt aches, drips, the flesh of her thighs slick with arousal even as the back of her shirt clings stickily to heated skin.  This takes work; nipples, clit and everything in between want a reward for their patience, but that will come later.  On her own time.  She has other arrangements, and this moment is for him.

She knows he can hear it, the whisper of leather straps as they slide up her legs and over her hips, the hiss as she cinches the belt.  The molded leather cock she dons for him bobs heavy between her legs, its base plate rippling vibration between her thighs.  He's already prepared himself, but she slicks the heavy phallus with oil, her hands pulling along its length thoughtfully as though it was a cock of flesh and blood and not of wood and leather.  It is, as all things intimate, an extension of self. 

Unbidden the memories of Merrill's delicate mouth, of her sweet, swollen cunt, drift into her mind like the scent of jasmine on the wind, and she bites back a groan.  This affair is conducted with her silence; it's his job to break it, not hers.

Sebastian trembles as she slides its tip along his cleft, searching, and steadily pushing home.

He is in control, as he ever is, but he chose to hand her the reins.  Even if what he wants is brutality - what he thinks he asked for, what he thinks he deserves - she doesn't give it to him.  At least, not in so unsubtle a way as ramming home like a cork hammered in to stop a leak in the deck.  That first initial breach - she draws it out, makes it last, and he whimpers so prettily through his teeth around the gag.

His hands are fists by the time their hips are flush, and were he tied any less tightly he would writhe.  Already he thrusts back against her, or forward, perhaps, against whatever fist he imagines tightens around his cock, as much as he can.  It isn't much, just enough to rattle the chains, to sway in the clattering embrace of the bonds that hold him.  He could release himself at any moment, could turn loose of the coiled cloth clutched so tightly within his hand, but she already knows he won't.  Sebastian is nothing if not stubborn, though she thinks he does himself a disservice by misnaming the tendency _devotion_.

She pulls away and then pushes back in, slow like waves at an early morning low tide, licking up the shore.  The sounds he makes, small grunts of effort studded through with strain, take on a decided pleading tone.

He wants to come.  It's not her responsibility.

It's a terrible thing.  Isabela is not much of one for pleasures delayed, not when there are so many to be sampled, and such little time.  Life is fleeting, too quick to spend so much energy in fighting the current. 

It's still his decision, his choice, and she keeps her eyes fixed on his hands as her own find his hips.  For all his theoretical chastity, he is not inexperienced - a pity that it took so long for their ships to find the same harbor.  Ten years ago, she might have enjoyed this more.  Ten years ago it might not have been a favor, but then again, Isabela is nothing if not a giver.  If he needs this, then she'll give it to him.

She knows her own body the way she knows every rope in a rig.  It doesn't take much to bring her over the edge, just some rhythmic friction and the right set of thoughts.  Slender white limbs twined all 'round with curling lines like tender green shoots and budding leaves; wide slanting eyes and an eager tongue, admonitions about assumptions of innocence and an open-hearted, mischievous giggle, lost in the sway of sheets that are never quite clean.

She rides out a climax with her hips against his ass, thrusting deep and hard enough to bring him up onto his toes, thighs and stomach trembling with effort.  His body telegraphs his every thought, but then there is only one.

**

_Let me come, let me come, oh please, Maker, let me come._

It's destroying him, this need, this want, this longing that pulses through him in time with Isabela's leather cock.  He stretches to fit - he's good at forcing himself into configurations outside his nature, and this is easier than other things. The initial burn fades quickly into smooth sensation, every nerve tingling with it, his senses heightened into overstimulation.  Her hands abrade still-tender flesh, the snap of her hips against him summoning both pain and pleasure.

It's always been that way.  Pain and pleasure, because he can't have one without the other, even when balancing both is such a struggle.

All it takes for him to want something is to be told it is beyond his reach.  His nature is twisted, perverse, quickly out of hand.  Perhaps that is why he craves a collar - not for its own sake, but for the companion leash.

His cock throbs in time with the beating of his heart, angry, red and straining.  There is part of him - more than part of him - that wants to pry open his fingers and let their watch-token plummet to the earth with the weight of a mountain, but he - can't.  He can't.  He needs this.  He needs this to live, to survive, if he's not to have anything else.

He's weeping, and there is a part of him that is glad that they agreed to play this scene as they have.  He doesn't want Isabela to see.  Isabela worries, and though she pretends to take him at his word, Isabela doesn't really trust him.

She comes and he can feel it shiver through both their bodies, and it only makes the tears come faster.  All he needs is a light touch, a single hot breath, and he'll make a mess of himself, become little more than a puddle on the floor.  And still there is only cool air and emptiness, the same absence he feels sometimes when he looks upon the little statue of Andraste in the corner of his room, lighting candles that shine uncomfortably bright into all his dark places.

Until the emptiness is gone.

Hawke is a giant.  Hawke fills a room, in presence and in body.  The city has been dancing on his force of will for years, the quiet, handsome man who minces no words and never hesitates.  The nobles, the templars, the clergy alike, he's seen them all bend like saplings before a storm.  Roots run deep, cling to fallow ground, but Hawke is nothing but persistent.  The man doesn't stop.

Perhaps that's why he can't seem to stay away, drawn like a helpless moth to something bright, hot and deadly.  It frightens him, paralyzes him, shakes him down to the bone, because for all his pleasant facades and denials, it isn't the danger he fears but the decision. 

Here, like this, it's harder to lie to himself.  He wants Hawke.  He has for years.

Hawke wants him too.  He must; he can seek entertainment elsewhere, in any myriad of forms, and yet he is here.  Sebastian is not so fully shrouded in self-delusion that he cannot recognize interest.  What to do about it – that is never as clear.

Maybe he won't have to decide - it's an errant wish, one that is banished as soon as it curls its foolishness into his mind.  Just because Hawke is there doesn't mean that Hawke will act.  For a man with the tact of a battering ram, he's shown remarkable restraint.  There have been - other times, other instances, less open but still unguarded.  Hawke didn't touch him then, and he doesn't touch him now, merely standing before his shaking, dripping body and _watching_.

Still, his gaze is like a caress, like fingers warm from a bath, dripping and heated all along his skin.  It flushes his cheeks, swells his chest, and his cock - his Maker-damned cock - throbs, yearning toward the unspoken offer of the touch he craves.

There's no hiding it now, this thing he is, strung up and strung out, messy with tears and spit and sweat.  Perhaps he is too pathetic for Hawke to desire, too needy and uncommitted. The thought fills him with shame.

He hangs his head and Hawke catches his chin, raising it implacably until Sebastian meets his eyes.  They still well with unchecked tears and desperation, doubt and hope - hope, _hope_ , such dangerous hope.  The pad of Hawke's thumb sweeps out across his lips, tracing their shape around the bit that yokes his mouth, and it's all he can do not to come apart at the seams.

Isabela is still thrusting into him, loyal in her own way, and invisible as it suits her.  He would not be surprised if she'd anticipated this outcome or guessed at his intentions, even the ones he was afraid to put into words when the invitation was extended. She is never surprised.  Annoyed, perhaps, but never surprised.  He feels the head of her cock rub up against that tender spot inside him and his body shudders, moisture dripping from the tip of his cock like tears off his chin.

"Is this what you wanted me to see?" Hawke asks, and his low voice is just for the two of them alone. 

Sebastian nods, grateful that he doesn't have to use his words.  He doesn't trust them.  They are liars and thieves, just as he is, and they will rob this moment from him.

"Shall I touch you?"

It isn't so much an offer or a request as it is a challenge.  He can still say no.  If he wants.  If he -

There's no use pretending, they are far past the point where it means anything, and it never helps.  Never.  Again he nods, eyes squeezing shut and head falling back as though in prayer.  If he knew at the foot of what altar to throw himself, he gladly would.

Hawke's callous-rough hand closes around his aching cock, and it's all he can do not to immediately come undone.  _This_ \- he wants this, wants to savor it, wants it to linger.  Perhaps this is all he deserves, all he is allowed, ever, this piece of Hawke hard won but freely given.  He wants to make it last as long as he can.

It still isn't long.  Isabela's hips carry his, buffeting him against Hawke like little boats run aground and dashed to pieces on sharp rocks.  It feels-  This is-

He spills himself into Hawke's fist, and the world goes white.

**

He wakes up in Hawke’s bed, warm and wrapped in coverlets.  The man favors red – red sheets, red drapes, red shirts, like the dull glow of a banked fire.

His body aches, but languidly.  His skin is slick and soft as though rubbed in oil, and he can smell elfroot and mint wafting from his wrists, salve still tacky where his flesh is rubbed raw.  He’s been well taken care of, even if he can’t remember it, can’t remember anything, after –

He sits up, alarmed, and the movement makes Hawke look up from where he’s sitting – lounging – sprawled in a chair at the desk.  Sebastian’s eyes meet his over the dimly lit space between, all deep brown like darkly tanned leather.  They are not curious, but considering.  There’s a measurement in the glance that makes Sebastian flush to the roots of his hair, awkwardly pulling at the sheets to cover himself as though he wasn’t naked and wanton and writhing on the end of a hard leather cock only hours before.

The thought makes his face burn.  He should say something, anything, but he can’t settle on what.  Shocking; a good whipping has clearly done nothing to temper his radical indecision.

But it doesn’t matter.  Hawke minces neither words nor actions, and his footfalls on the thick woven carpet sound very final.  The bed creaks under his weight as he perches on the edge of the mattress, one leg bent as he turns to face his friend.

Friend.  Is that what they are?  Now?  Before?  He’s spinning in a whirlpool of ideas, notions and definitions, and so many questions that-

“How are you feeling?”

“How long was I asleep?”  Sebastian demurs, not quite able to look Hawke in the eye.  All he can think about is a rough fist around his weeping cock, and coming, coming like-

The corner of Hawke’s mouth turns upward.  “Just a few hours.”

“And you- stayed?”

“It’s my house.”

Of course it is.  It only makes sense that-  Maker.

“Do you need anything?”

Dignity, maybe.  The ability to travel back in time.  He regrets this so much- or wants to, ill at ease with himself because he really doesn’t regret any of it at all but he feels like maybe he should.  The only regrettable thing would be if Hawke no longer wants anything to do with him, if the quiet, familiar flame in his chest be snuffed out before it has a chance to grow.

But he still needs to answer, and he- can’t.  He just shrugs, wraps the sheets a little tighter.

Hawke is quiet, the look on his face unreadable.  His brows draw together in something very much like a scowl - and they’re all familiar enough with Hawke’s scowling - but somehow _isn’t_.

“This wasn’t necessary.”

There is no question of what _this_ is.  He should look at Hawke when Hawke is speaking, but it’s so much easier not to.  “Wasn’t it?”

“Maybe for you, it was.  But not for me.”

He does look at him then, frowning because he doesn’t understand.  Hawke sighs, a rare display.  “Maker save my reputation if you really think that _I_ have to be warned away from _you_.”

“That wasn’t my intent.”  Lies.

“Wasn’t it?”

He doesn’t have anything else to say, seemingly intent on digging himself a pit to fall into.

Hawke shakes his head.  “I’m only good at one kind of game, Sebastian, and it doesn’t have much to do with _guessing_.  If you want something from me, you need to ask for it.”

It sounds like a rule, like parameters.  He can make himself fit.  “I just want- _you_.”

“The whip?  Or the hand that wields it?”

“Can they not be the same?”

“I can’t grant you absolution. I don’t even believe in the Maker.”

“I know.”

“But I can punish you.”  His eyes are direct and knowing, unshy.  Perhaps this has been a convoluted way of going about things – yes, _perhaps_ – but cutting to the heart of the matter is a skill that Hawke ever retains.  “If that is what you desire.”

Relief wells heady, spills from him like a sigh. “Yes.  That is what I wish.”

“Then we will try.”  Hawke smirks.  “Later.”

That’s all he can ask.

Hawke sits back against the headboard, one leg still dangling off the side of the mattress, and extends his arm.  He’s a big man, tall and sturdy like the trunk of a tree.  Sebastian is of no small stature, but they fit well together. 

Hawke turns, drops a rough kiss against the side of his head.  It would be perfunctory, if Hawke was one for showing casual affection – or any affection at all.  “Isabela said you owe her a drink.”  

It’s enough to make him giddy, smiling like a fool, charmed and pleased and - grateful. 

“That, at least, is a debt I can settle.”


End file.
